United States Poised to Defeat Sweden : Tennis: Sampras and Agassi untroubled by Enqvist, Wilander as U.S. team takes a 2-0 lead in Davis Cup semifinal.

For the U.S. Davis Cup team, which fell on its face about this time last year, Friday was a walk in the park.

Not only did the United States take a 2-0 lead over Sweden in the best-of-five semifinal, but nearly everything else seemed to be heavenly for the home team in this plastic paradise.

Pete Sampras won the opening match over Thomas Enqvist in 2 hours 19 minutes, then talked about how great it was to have his ailing coach, Tim Gullikson, at court side for the first time since January’s Australian Open.

“It was really great to hear him call me ‘Pistol’ during the changeovers--kind of reminded me of the old times,” Sampras said. He also said that he was ahead at the blackjack tables.

Andre Agassi won the second match over Mats Wilander in 2 hours 9 minutes, then talked about how great it was to play in front of a hometown crowd for the first time in a real match and in front of his father, whose face “is with me anywhere I play on the planet.”

In his postmatch news conference, Agassi talked about his foundation for underprivileged children and its Sept. 30 fund-raiser that will, in his words, “net $1.3 million, clean . . .” and “. . . help us give something to the children who go to sleep at night with no hope at all.” When the news conference ended, Agassi was applauded.

It was that kind of day in the high desert, where temperatures reached the low 90s in midafternoon, with 13% humidity, and the bright blue sky was dotted with wispy clouds.

The 12,887-seat stadium behind Caesars Palace, which actually seats 12,421 without the obstructed-view seats, filled up with 12,421 ticket-buyers. And that not only pleased the United States Tennis Assn., which runs the Davis Cup events and takes its proceeds to the bank, but also Sampras and Agassi, the main U.S characters in this three-day, five-act play.

Sampras said: “It was packed. They were really into the match. It was just a pleasure to play in front of them.”

Agassi said, “I really felt like Las Vegas could be a great place for the Davis Cup because I believed we could fill it up.”

And fill it up they did, so much so that the concession stands very early in the afternoon started running out of bottled water and soft drinks.

But that slight wrinkle, plus Agassi’s fit over a line call in the first set in which he stunned a major portion of the crowd and an ESPN television audience by loudly spitting out the F-word, seemed lost in the overall upbeat nature of the day and high quality of the tennis by the world’s top two players.

No. 2 Sampras, trailing Agassi by only 441 points for No. 1, took out No. 8 Enqvist, 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. He did so by serving 24 aces, surviving a letdown in the third set that could have opened the door for Enqvist, and even overcoming his fourth set of broken strings that caused a double fault on his second match point.

“I was stringing the rackets at about 36 kilos, which is about 80 pounds, with really thin gauge,” Sampras said. “Reason I was doing that was because, with the altitude at 2,200 feet, the ball just carries a bit more.”

Every time Sampras popped a set of strings, he sent the racket to be redone immediately. Listening to Enqvist afterward, it appeared that his only chance would have been with an injury to the racket-stringer.

“When he is serving like he is today,” Enqvist said, “nobody is beating him in the world.”

And when Agassi is cranking ground strokes from both sides the way he did against an overmatched Wilander, No. 50 in the world, nobody is beating him, either, as the 7-6 (7-5), 6-2, 6-2 victim Wilander found out.

Agassi, his white bandanna with the shoe company ink-blot on it and his backhand-down-the-line looking equally snappy, overcame Wilander’s only real chance in the first set. The 31-year-old Swede had two serves at 5-4 of the tiebreaker but lost both and then lost the set when Agassi crushed a backhand winner for 7-5.

“I served for the set and had a mini-break in the tiebreaker. . . .” Wilander said. “After that, he was just too good.”

As was the day itself for U.S. tennis fans, who face just one cloud on the horizon--the memory of last year’s U.S.-Sweden semifinal in Sweden, where the United States also led, 2-0, but lost, 3-2.

Even that was dismissed easily by Tom Gullikson, Tim’s twin brother and the U.S. captain.

“This is this time,” he said. “Last year is irrelevant.”

Davis Cup Notes

The first chance for the U.S. team to clinch will be today’s doubles match, matching Todd Martin and Jonathan Stark of the United States against Stefan Edberg and Jonas Bjorkman. That match starts at noon, but will be delayed for telecast on ESPN until 2 p.m.